San Francisco Bay Area bibliophiles are riled up that their beloved Goodreads book recommendation website will be taken over by Amazon, whom they blame for laying siege to brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Their Twitter and Facebook accounts continue to fill up with outraged comments from fellow book lovers, who are joining best-selling writers and the Authors Guild in condemning last week’s announcement that Amazon will take over San Francisco-based Goodreads for an undisclosed price.

“I’m anti-Amazon in general,” said Maria Roden, 53, of Orinda.

Roden loves the community of bibliophiles she’s found on Goodreads and appreciates the recommendations she receives for good fiction. But Roden also gets a chill when she thinks about the possibility that Amazon will track the kinds of books she likes and push her to buy even more.

On Goodreads, Roden said, “you can talk about books without someone trying to sell you something, so I don’t like the concept of Amazon buying it. I heard about it and thought, ‘Here goes Amazon again.'”

Certainly, some Goodreads followers are hoping for the best.

Alana Becker, 24, of Berkeley, reads at least three books a month on her Kindle, stays active on Goodreads and expects that the upcoming Amazon/Goodreads marriage will lead her to buy even more books through Amazon.

“It’s inevitable,” Becker said. “Others are concerned about privacy issues or data that Amazon can exploit. But I’m excited about the acquisition. Best case scenario, I finish a book on Kindle, and Goodreads updates that I’ve finished reading it and I’ll be able to track what I’ve read without having to do much effort. Hopefully it’ll be good.”

But such optimistic views are being countered by thechorus of protest.

“It’s scary,” said Ann Seaton, the manager of the independent bookseller Hicklebees, in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose. “The stranglehold that any one player gets on a community is ultimately bad for everybody.”

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